Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
Though I could feel a scarlet A ghosting across my bruised lips and mussed hair, nobody in the band batted much of an eye as Tom and I sprinted into the greenroom minutes before the show.
Tom offered a quick apology to the group—no fanfare, no ego—and was met with a mellow chorus of it happens before we went onstage and delivered for Portland as we have everywhere else.
Only Grayson made a nasty comment while we mic’d up about the bruise on my elbow and if Tom’s a violent drunk. I could have slapped him.
As expected, Jen is another story. After the show she has us clear the room so she and Tom can have a “private conversation.” I can just tell from the creases in her usually smooth forehead he’s in for it.
Taking a verbal lashing from Jen Gabler to save my self-destructive, inebriated ass. Now, that’s courtship.
“I am so, so, so sorry, Clementine,” Indy laments as we trudge through tall grass outside the venue.
Before I can take another step she pulls me into a long, swaying hug.
“I was getting screamed at by Jen over some Instagram nightmare and I had to run back to the other bus to get my hard drive and then when we started to leave the driver said everyone was accounted for and Molly was on your bus so I didn’t know you weren’t with her, and—”
“Indy—” I detangle myself from the embrace. “It’s totally fine. I don’t blame you guys at all.”
“Thank God.” She narrows her eyes at me. “But if you did, I would deserve it.”
A smirk tugs at my cheeks. “But I don’t.”
The air is heavy with the salt of the seaside and lit by a generous harvest moon.
Molly doesn’t say anything beside us, but I can tell from the unfamiliar way she chews her lip that something is eating at her.
We’re a few feet from the bus, the dregs of concertgoers still screaming for Halloran outside the security barricades, when she stops short.
“I’m sorry, too.”
Indy shoots me a look of surprise.
“For what?” I ask.
Molly crosses her legs and then her arms, too. It’s as though her entire body is protesting this admission of guilt. “I left you to go make out with Pete.”
“It was my own fault for getting wasted. Actually, I owe you both for not outing me to the rest of the band. Conor, too.”
Molly’s cat eyes are lit by moonlight and fierce as ever. When she directs them at me I swear she could be a sorceress. “To be honest, I was still upset about the duet. But I’ve heard you sing each night…Your voice is better suited for it. It’s pretty fucking insane.”
It means more coming from Molly than I expect. She’s not big on compliments. And definitely not false ones.
“And even if it wasn’t,” she continues, “I shouldn’t have abandoned you—not when you were so shit-faced you couldn’t take care of yourself.” Her full lips twist. “That’s not what friends do. So I’m sorry, for real.”
Indy steps closer to her. “Oh, Molls.”
“I’m fine,” Molly tells her before looking to me. “As long as we’re cool?”
I want to offer her a hug, but I’m not sure how well received it’ll be. “We are definitely cool.”
“Good.” Satisfied, Molly resumes our hike through the grassland toward the parking lot where our busses idle.
“That was new,” Indy says to me under her breath.
And it does feel new. Not just the vulnerability I hadn’t seen in Molly before, but the fact that she was willing to share that side of herself with me in order to make things right between us. Somewhere along the way, these women have both become more than just new friends.
And while mostly that fills me with warm, girlhood-loving fuzzies, there are also little flecks of guilt floating about like dust in sunlight. Why haven’t I told them the truth about Tom and me?
—
Two days later, we leave Maine for Massachusetts.
I’ll miss the creamy lobster rolls and picturesque sailboats, but honestly, I can’t wait to be back on the road.
There’s something addictive about the vastness of this country.
Each city brings new vistas, new sounds, a new taste to the air.
I’m cataloging every moment—my first sold-out show in Memphis, walking through New Orleans’s French Quarter, gambling terribly in Atlantic City—saving each one in a mental scrapbook I can return to when I’m a Happy Tortilla waitress in my forties.
That being said, the overnight drive from Bangor to Boston on this unpaved road in my claustrophobic bunk is not the best. It’s like trying to sleep on tumble dry.
We left late since the drive isn’t too long, so I’d guess it’s three in the morning by now?
I actually have no frame of reference for what time it is because I know as soon as I check my phone I’m condemning myself to scroll until the sun peeks through my feeble curtain.
Neither Indy nor Molly ever asked a single question in the past two days about Tom and my impromptu road trip after Drunkgate. Which is a relief of course.
Totally a relief.
Not at all irksome.
But if it were to be irksome, which it isn’t , it’d be because even my friends—friends whom I haven’t told about my deep-seated relationship reservations—couldn’t fathom a scenario in which anything remotely salacious happened between Tom and me.
And perhaps that irks me because I know they’re right.
This thing between us that has proven to be more than my initial just one kiss assumption makes no sense.
So on top of being doomed, as all romantic pursuits usually are, it’s also completely illogical.
So illogical, not one member of the band could even think of it when left to their own filthy imaginations.
On top of the unshakable sense of romantic dread that has lingered since Tom and I made out in Rhett’s car, my mind is kept wide-awake with how much I want to tell Molly and Indy what’s going on.
That I have a date with Tom in New York in just a few days.
But even if he hadn’t asked me to keep our kiss a secret, let’s be honest: I’m scared shitless.
I haven’t said anything to my own mother .
When I was eighteen—not thirteen or seven or any age that would make this story cuter—before opening night of Little Shop of Horrors , Everly and I laughed so hard about something I peed in my Audrey costume.
My mom was my very first call. She had some leopard-print minidress of her own and raced over with it ten minutes before curtain-up despite her flare-up.
Point being: I tell my mom everything , with no shame whatsoever.
But something about these two kisses—just two kisses with the guy —feels so emotionally overwhelming I can hardly fathom putting it into words.
Hey, Mom, I kissed Halloran twice and now my skin is too tight on my body all the time, and my heart gets hooked up to some kind of generator on overdrive whenever he walks into a room, and I’m constantly dying to ask him every question I can think of and scribble his answers into a notebook that I’ll read each night before bed like a zealot, but it’s chill, it’s so casual, and how have you been?
When my thoughts spin out and my heart climbs up into my throat, I cave and fish through the thin, starchy sheets for my phone. An assault of blue light melts my corneas and I squint dramatically while turning the brightness way down. Half-blinded, I gather it’s 3:41.
And beneath that, I have a text from an unknown number. It’s from midnight tonight. I must’ve missed it when I attempted to pass out after the show.
I open the message and see the following:
Hey, it’s Tom.
And time-stamped one minute later:
Halloran.
I can’t help my schoolgirl smile as I write back:
Hi, Tom Halloran.
I add him to my contacts, lock my phone, and am swallowed up once again by oppressive darkness. Rolling to my other side offers no comfort and neither does rubbing my feet together like a giddy cricket. I flex them toward the wall where Wren’s head lies on the other side.
Relax, I tell myself, go to sleep.
I’m wondering if the bump we just sailed over wasn’t another bus altogether, when my phone buzzes at my hip and my whole body clenches. I’ve never opened the damn thing so fast.
Tom Halloran: What are you doing awake? It’s nearly four.
If I had any resolve at all, I’d put the phone away and answer him in the morning. Play it cool, as my mom always instructed. But, alas, I have the willpower of a grapefruit.
Clementine: I could ask you the same question.
He responds instantly.
Tom Halloran: Nocturnal, remember?
Clementine: Right, right. Spooky.
Tom Halloran: And you?
Clementine: I’m a light sleeper. I think that last pothole we drove over shook my jaw from its socket.
Tom Halloran: Not your lovely jaw!
My smile is shameful.
Clementine: Tragic, I know.
Tom Halloran: Come back here.
I read it, and then reread it. My heart has stalled out, wheezing on its hands and knees.
Come back here.
The thought of all his weight pressed against me beneath bedsheets—his hugeness and his smell…
The little text bubble pops up, indicating he’s typing, before it disappears again. I imagine him fearing he’s come on too strong and debating what to say next. But I’m at a loss, too. The onslaught of how much I want to be held by him in the quiet dark kind of scares me.
Finally, he adds:
Tom Halloran: This bed is sturdier.
Tom Halloran: And will be warmer with you in it.
I catch my breath and write back before I do something I know we’ll both regret.
Clementine: Bad idea!
Tom Halloran: Agreed. Inappropriate for you to even suggest such a thing.
Clementine: You’re a monster. Good night.
Tom Halloran: Good night.
I’m still smiling when I lock my phone and roll over.
I wish he wasn’t sweet and funny, too. That kind of charisma doesn’t just evaporate after one filthy night the way it might if he were only a handsome face.
In fact, watching him overcome, groaning on top of me, choking on my name—it might make these pesky feelings even worse.
Come back here .